Atomic interferometer based gyroscopes represent a possible route to high stability rotation sensing that can provide navigation solutions in situations where satellite based navigation has become degraded or is not available. In an atomic interferometer, the wave equation for an atom is split in half and the interferometer causes the two halves of that wave to travel different paths. The two halves are then recombined. When the halves are recombined, the two wave halves may have accumulated a relative phase difference with respect to each other so that a phase measurement can be measured from an output of the interferometer. High precision gyroscopes using other inertial sensor technologies exist, but they are appreciably more expensive to manufacture than atomic interferometer based devices. One problem with atomic interferometer devices, however, is that factors other than rotation can affect the phase differences in the split waves accumulated before recombination, leading to measurement errors in the output of the gyroscope. For example, the phase accumulation in an atomic interferometer is a function of both rotation perpendicular to the plane of path separation and linear acceleration along the direction of path separation, experienced by the atoms during the time they are traversing the interferometer as a split wave equation. Also, if there are imperfections in the interferometer or external field gradients, anything in addition to rotation and linear acceleration that causes one path of the interferometer to look different than the other path of the interferometer may accumulate a phase difference. Phase accumulation from such phenomena are indistinguishable from inertially induced phase rotation as observed from the output of the atomic interferometer gyroscope.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the specification, there is a need in the art for system and methods for Fully Reciprocal Atomic Interferometric Gyroscopes.